


Bubblegum, Fire, Salt Water

by florencedrunk (spokenitalics)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Post-The Doctor Falls (S10E12)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-03 13:52:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12749628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spokenitalics/pseuds/florencedrunk
Summary: "Just to be clear," Bill starts as they walk through the alley. "Did we just get thrown out of the Last Supper?""We wouldn’t have been if you hadn't asked for a selfie," Heather answers, following her with her arms crossed. "So, what do you want to see next?"She thinks for a second, before turning around with a smile on her face. "Something... pink!"





	Bubblegum, Fire, Salt Water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AuroraCloud](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraCloud/gifts).



 

"Just to be clear," Bill starts as they walk through the alley. "Did we just get thrown out of the Last Supper?"

"We wouldn’t have been if you hadn't asked for a selfie," Heather answers, following her with her arms crossed. "So, what do you want to see next?"

She thinks for a second, before turning around with a smile on her face. "Something... pink!"

"Really?"

"Really."

"Take my hand, then."

And a moment later they're falling through the Time Vortex, blue and purple and red and endlessly burning. Heather steers them away from Earth, far into the future, until a new world materialises around them. Under their feet, black grass, and like small explosions of colours, hundreds and hundreds of fluorescent flowers popping up from the ground. In the distance, mountains like walls made of pure gold, frozen trees shimmering in the moonlight, a lake so still it might as well be a mirror. Up above, the reason they came here: a sky the colour of bubblegum full of clouds like cotton candy.

"Have I impressed you, Bill Potts?"

"This is, like, the ugliest planet _ever_ ," she answers, twirling around. "I love it."

They lie down on the grass, letting themselves be engulfed by that monstrosity that looms over them like a sticky dome of sugary doom. They don't talk, which is weird because literally nothing else seems to be making any kind of noise, but it also doesn't feel right to break the silence. They stay like this for a while, quiet and unmoving, watching as two green moons rise from beyond the horizon.

"You're a liar!" Bill erupts at one point, because a thought just bloomed in her mind and it's too big to keep it there. "You're a massive liar!"

"I'm not a liar!" Heather counters. "Not a _massive_ one..."

"First time we spoke, you said you were getting your eye fixed. And you told me you can rearrange atoms and stuff, now."

"Okay?"

"Your star is still there!"

Heather turns the other side. "I thought you liked it."

"I thought you didn't."

"I didn't," she says. "Not until you said you did."

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh."

"But I do! I do like it," Bill tries to recover. What an idiot. She shouldn't be allowed to talk to people. Like, ever. "Actually, I love it. Yes, I love... it."

Heather laughs. "As anybody ever told you that you're a dork?"

"Yep, it has been said."

"Good," she says. And then, after a moment of silence, "How long as it been for you, anyway? Since Bristol, I mean."

Bill takes a deep breath. "Ten years, more or less."

" _Ten_ years?"

"There was a thing, with black holes and cyborgs. Complicated," she explains. "What about you?"

"I'm not really sure. It's hard to tell when you time travel."

Bill turns to the sky. "I haven't thanked you yet, have I?"

"You don't need to."

"But I want to."

"You're very welcome, then."

 

* * *

 

Darkness. People screaming, running. The light of a city on fire crowning a hill up above, flames rising and roaring as they consume wood and sear marble and destroy roads and towers. Bill hasn't let go of Heather's hand yet.

"I can't believe we're actually here," she says, after a deep breath. "I can't believe we're actually watching Rome burn."

"It's just a city," Heather says. "They'll rebuild it even better than it already is, and it won't fall for another three centuries. A lot of it is still there is our time."

"There are people living there."

"People that were already dead by the time you were born."

"It's still... weird."

"You'll have to get used to it, to seeing things end."

"Oh, God, you sound just like just like _him_ ," Bill says, and then she goes quiet.

Heather squeezes her hand lightly. "Do you miss him?"

"Of course I miss him," she whispers. "But we'll meet again. I know we will."

They look into each other's eyes, faces lit up by the orange light coming from the hill. They kiss, just a peck, and then they both smile.

"You know who I'd really like to meet?" Heather starts, turning to lead them away from the hill. "Sappho."

"Nope," Bill says immediately. "Just, no."

"What? What do you mean, no?"

"We can't go there. Like, ever."

"Why not?"

Bill doesn't answer. She just makes a face. One that conveys all the shades of "Bad breakup," she hopes.

"Was she pretty, at least?" Heather asks.

"She was amazing!"

"Okay, what about Amelia Earhart?"

"Not really lost."

Heather rolls her eyes. "I had dinner with Cleopatra. This woman with amazing hair was also there. I think she was her wife."

"I ended up in a cell with Queen Christina of Sweden," Bill says, and adds under her breath, "Bloody Zygons."

"I got a private show from Gladys Bentley."

"Oh, shut up!"

 

* * *

 

A layer of glass separates them from the ocean, alien sharks and alien whales and all kinds of alien fish swimming on the other side of it. Bill has her both her palms open against the transparent dome, her smile reflected on its surface.

She turns to face Heather, who's sitting in on a bed in the middle of the circular space. "Now you've impressed me, Heather... Wait, what's your last name?"

"Now you ask me?" she asks back, getting up.

Bill's smiles as she takes her hands in her own. "I suppose I'm accustomed to running away in space with people without names."

"Sure, good excuse."

They kiss for just a second, a small burst of fire like a miniature supernova caught between their lips.

"By the way, this is the third best hotel in the universe," Heather says. "I didn't know you were such high maintenance."

"Third?" Bill asks. "What about the first two?"

"The first one is owned by this mole guy with really bad breath, and the second one is just rubbish."

Another kiss — longer, deeper. Not an explosion, this time, but something quieter, more ancient, like... like a black hole, almost. It devours them, and they devour each other, taste each other.

They move towards the bed, hands brushing against skin, and skin against skin like silk against silk. Tongues exploring, mouths singing what sounds like the oldest song in the universe, but feels brand new to their ears — sweet words and muffled moans and bitten down curses. Laughter, teeth showing and throats bared. Cries, names called in the almost darkness. Pleas, for more, always more. Never enough.

And when they're lying side by side, electricity still buzzing through their bodies — eyes looking into eyes, lost in galaxy of thoughts and hopes; hands tightly intertwined like gold around precious stones — Heather calls for Bill, her voice soft, almost inaudible.

"I think this is the first place I don't want to leave," she says.

 

**Author's Note:**

> \- [Queen Christina of Sweden](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina,_Queen_of_Sweden) was one of the most educated women of the 1600s. When she was born, she was initially mistaken for a boy. The king wasn't too unhappy, though, stating, "She'll be clever, she has made fools of us all!" She became known as the _Minerva of the North_ and, after her abdication, was described by the Pope as "a queen without a realm, a Christian without faith, and a woman without shame."
> 
> \- [Gladys Bentley](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladys_Bentley) was an American blues singer, pianist and entertainer during the Harlem Renaissance. Her career skyrocketed when she appeared at Harry Hansberry's Clam House in New York in the 1920s, as a black, lesbian, cross-dressing performer. She dressed in men's clothes, played piano, and sang her own raunchy lyrics to popular tunes of the day in a deep, growling voice while flirting with women in the audience.
> 
> \- I don't need to tell you who Cleopatra's wife is, do I?  
>   
> 
> If you enjoyed reading this fic, please consider reblogging it on [tumblr](http://florencedrunk.tumblr.com/post/168529808857/bubblegum-fire-salt-water-just-to-be-clear)!


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